Keira-WitherKay i bought this guitar about 3 weeks back now........... and loving it ....... it's an early 70's Hofner 4572 (which is essentially a Gibson ES330 copy with a few of their own hofner twists) made in germany of course 1stly it plays awesomely ....and has a great jazz tone.......... it's an odd beast and the one i have has the contols all in one row and only 3 of them not 4 like some models ......... also my model has been factory fitted with single coil hofner 511 pups which dates it to very early 70's as they only used the single coils for a short time......and it was humbuckers before and after ......... and the bridge is wood with slots cut in and fitted with fret wire which is movable to set intonation .a wierd system but hell it works.........i love the novelty of the bridge but i'll replace it with a tunamatic shortly...... also the frets are in great shape and despite being 40 yrs old they not worn down ........ oooh and check out the awesome back of the guitar ...... it's way prettier than the top ....... what a waste anyway some pics below
costafonix Yep, I heard this baby on Sunday and she has a really cool jazzy sound., nice catch there Keira :yup:
Keira-WitherKay CostaFonix wrote Yep, I heard this baby on Sunday and she has a really cool jazzy sound., nice catch there Keira :yup: yeah the sound is incredible....those single coils are more like P90's and gives me the tone i want for traditional jazz ? just a heads up she's(the Hofner) coming to you for a once over .....very shortly ... i loved the work you did on my other jazz box i just sold and the buyer did notice the fab action an setup ....so thanks for that ......"love your work"
make-and-do Nice guitar! I've often wondered what's the reason for the very first fret next to the nut? I've seen a few (usually obscure brands) vintage guitars have that. Does it serve any purpose?
kapepper its called a zero fret and replaces the actual nut 9but correct me if i am wrong) I had it also on my 12 string ibanez, and I did not really like it
singemonkey Gretsches have zero-frets too. I believe it's to make the sound of the open strings more consistent with the sounds of the fretted strings.
Keira-WitherKay as for the zero fret .it allows for a way low action and eliminates the effect of the nut on the guitars tone since not all nuts are made out of good material .. and on guitars with NO zero fret when the open strings ring it sounds ever so slightly different to a fretted one..........now they all fretted even the open ones.......... also i found the nut slots are not as tight as in guitars without the zero fret ...which helps with more stable tuning ......as strings don't stick on the nut ....... and personally i think it has no noticable affect on ones playing ....... as in it does not feel odd or wierd ........ well not to me anyway
Keira-WitherKay MikeM wrote Surely they should wear like crazy though? ? well at the moment the guitar is 40 odd years old and the zero fret which seems to be the original one is still perfect......... so i guess they kinda don't wear away too much .....but i'm playing this one a lot so will keep an eye on that
MikeM I think considering none of the frets are worn, that it'd not give a good indication on how fast the zero fret will wear yet. Will be interesting to see if it lasts 5 years with you ? (By this I mean that you don't upgrade from it)
